Labrador open-pit mines in works
Search Minerals plans to extract rare-earth elements
Canadian mining company Search Minerals announced a “critical” rare earth element discovery near Port Hope Simpson, Labrador, on Jan. 27.
The site, called Deepwater Fox, is the second major find in the Port Hope Simpson rareearth-element area, which stretches 62 kilometres long and eight kilometres wide.
Search Minerals’ first major rare- earth-element discovery was Foxtrot in 2010. Since then, 22 other sites have been discovered or outlined for upcoming prospecting.
The rare earth element-bearing minerals at Deepwater Fox are believed to be similar to those at Foxtrot, primarily allanite and fergusonite.
However, the Deepwater Fox prospect (34m channel) is wider than the surface expression of the Foxtrot deposit (10-14m) and may be as large as 500 metres long and 34 metres wide.
“The current model we have of the company’s business plan is to basically build a central processing plant in southeast Labrador,” said Jim Clucas, interim president and CEO.
Search Minerals aims to develop many shallow open-pit mines, with low operating and capital costs, that will feed a scalable metallurgical processing plant.
Clucas said the location of the site is advantageous.
“The Trans-Labrador Highway goes right through the property, we have three towns nearby to provide a labour force for us and we have an ice-free port in St. Lewis,” he said.
The site is also located two kilometres away from the St. Lewis airport.
According to Clucas, Search Minerals is uniquely positioned to lay out a plan and stick to it. It has already received one government grant which allowed it to do the metallurgical test, and he is optimistic it can obtain other grants from the provincial and federal governments down the road.
Its main thrust is to develop a scoping study, which will indicate what sort of economics to expect on the project. If it can show positive economics, it will likely try to do the financing so it can take “the next level of knowledge” on those 22 targets it has discovered, the most promising of which is Deepwater Fox.
Clucas said Search Minerals could put drills on site for up to $400,000 to find out if there is any continuity similar to what exists at Foxtrot.
Greg Andrews, executive vicepresident and corporate secretary, said the company will work on the site sometime between May and November — the working season for its camp — depending on funding.
“Rare earth space is technically difficult space and you better have the right people involved with you, and that’s why we’re particularly fortunate to have Randy Miller and David Dreisinger,” said Clucas. “Both of these guys are at the forefront of their field and the combination should put us ahead of the pack, especially with the logistics we’re talking about and the support of the federal and provincial governments.”
Through all the work Search Minerals has done in southeast Labrador, the company has maintained a positive working relationship with NunatuKavut. In 2012, the two groups signed a mutually beneficial exploration activities agreement which will continue indefinitely unless one or both sides terminate it.
The agreement covers safeguards for the environment and things of historical importance, as well as hiring and other business opportunities for NunatuKavut members.
It also gives them a stake in the company’s success, as Search Minerals makes “an annual good faith payment to NunatuKavut community council of a small cash stipend and 50,000 common shares.”
NunatuKavut community council president Todd Russell expressed excitement for the findings.
“They keep us abreast of significant new developments and we were very pleased with the new information that came out over a week ago,” he said.